OurGirl: Affairs of the Heart

confession: this is what i'm listening to on my 'pod.


Beach Walk 595 - Cranky Geeklt;/a>

i know. i know. i'm nearly whimpering as i type this. what have i become? i'm my own worst nightmare.

its like the green eggs and ham story and i'm that guy who has steadfastly refused the suspicious culinary delights of the green ovums and slice of the porcine. and then beat down, exhausted, and weary, i capitulate and try it.

and i relax.

and i feel better for the first time since...hmmm...shortly before harvest, this past september.

lets be clear here. i don't buy her. not the seemingly perpetual cheeriness or the wide open arms of acceptance...at any other time in my life i would just dismiss her.

now i need her.

its the lilting hawaiian music intro music. its the sound of her talking very positively, very assuredly. happy chatter. light. foamy bits of nothing. and then the sound of the rushing waves hitting the sand, pushing it forward and pulling it back into place like once giant therapeutic massage of noise. i don't watch her, i really find her distracting. but i do listen to her. if i have trouble falling asleep, i walk the beach with rox over and over until i get the sleeping part right.

did i type that?

i've made no bones about the fact i have great people involved in my life. there are a few people i know that are going through some shaky ground right now. i watch them real careful-like—the same way i watch my kids. a wait-ful watch. ready to fly at any threat, ready to fly to their rescue, but here, i am hopeless. they aren't my kids, these are grownups. most likely, i wouldnt be of much rescue or saving value, even if they wanted or needed the effort. things are a bit crazy on my end as well.

so i will settle for telling you, all my friends going through some scary stuff: i love you. and i worry for you. and when i give you a small loaf of my homemade bread, i'm telling you that i'm glad you've made it, glad you landed on safe ground—although it may not be the same ground that you were aiming to land upon. i was really scared. i'm glad you are here.

happy you made it.

Morgan: Visitors Welcome!

I love looking at our ClustrMaps and speculating on whether our viewer in Irkustk is on a dial up computer, or perhaps using his laptop with a wireless connection on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Do they spend much time on our Blog or simply click through. Maybe language is a problem, afterall not everyone reads "American". That would explain why we have no viewers in Vietnam I know they have internet connection there, internet cafes abound on every street corner. I see we have a few viewers in Iran and wonder what other kind of sites are they reading. Or does their government restrict content?
I think it safe to say our main readership is from the US and Europe. I'm worried that no one in North Dakota is logging on, don't they have high speed internet out there? We really need to increase or hits in South America (Language issues again) and Africa. Do they surf in Africa? Well somebody is reading us in South Africa.
Maybe we should blog in Spanish. Byrne you've been studying spanish, wanna give it a try?








Every Monday I receive an Automatic e-mail from Byrne containing Google Analytics I love studying the data and trying to discern trends and patterns. We seem to be averaging 10 viewers every other day. What do we need to do boost hits? We use keywords, advertising, We have a Google search tool. How come no one but Andy comments? Only the Raj thanked Byrne for her blog. Oh well, I guess we blog for ourselves and the love of blogging. Visitors are welcome though!

Disclaimer: If the content of this blog seems eerily familiar, like a older blog that I have posted, the author claims full responsibility and will try to refrain from recycling old thoughts and promise to strive for more originality in the future. My sincere apologies. Blog recycling was unintentional.

OurGirl: uniformity and the love of rhinos

i entered design school, a freshly-scrubbed, shiny-face young lass, without thinking about appearances. in my lee jeans and farm plaid shirts (many of them short sleeved!) i completely stood out in the crowd of very serious design students. it was a sea of multilayered thrift store chic, multicolored mussed hair, and multicolored pancake eyelids hidden under darkly slashed kohled eyes. everything smelled like patchouli and slight mildew and was held together with sashes of ribbons cut from pantyhose, old skirts, and safetypins. in the zoo of exotic design animals, i was the prairie dog exhibit. every once in a while, i tried to fit in but i always felt uncomfortable. prairie dogs in spangles are, well, prairie dogs in spangles...

the blog template is much the same way. it was a uniform, it fit, it was functional, i put it on and headed out the door without a thought.

but i get what my rhino says. and i love the banner photo, 'cause that's just what this blog is. a meandering commentary path in a series of topic hills. and i'm happy he's back. one more post on my domestic overlook trail and i would have thrown myself off the virtual overlook just to see if anything interesting happened. i like having the ability to play off his posts. i get inspired by rhino.

so i have a proposal for a greek photo blog:
rhino, what if you take that plastic rhino with you and take pics of the rhino in gorgeous greek settings—but have the rhino huge in scale to say, the acropolis. like an ala magritte change in scale. then give us a story of what you did that day.

here is a site: themorningnews.org i've been digging into for the last few days, purely for the visuals. like kent rogowski who takes stuffed animals and turns them inside out and he also buys puzzles from the same manufacturer and then combines the different puzzles to make new compositions.

Morgan: New Title Banner

I got sick and tired of looking at our drab banner. We're Graphics for crying out loud, lets act like it!
Byrne, If you don't like the banner, I can change it. However I'll have to limit you to three changes.
Walsh you check the spelling and Andy, I would appreciate all the feedback you can muster.
Please route all communiques through the Customer Service Representatives.

Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart! - Bruce Campbell and the Army of Darkness

Morgan: The Prodigal Blogger Returns

As our readers may have noticed I have been on blogging sabbatical. With numerous issues weighing heavily on my mind I thought it best that Byrne blog on without me, and she did. She wondered if I would return to the blog and I reassured her that I would when the time was right. The respite served me well and I feel the urge to blog again. Perhaps I should never have stopped writing as I find deep comfort and therapeutic value in sharing our thoughts online.
What I seek is Cosmos...I need to find order in Chaos. I feel the need to seek and know the truth. I need to dissect my existence and find my purpose. Do I feel lost? Yes, a little bit like flotsam drifting in a beltway sea of bureaucracy. I seek Inspiration...something to ignite the passion which seems always to elude me in this mental morass that has such a grip on me. Firm upper lip lad! Press on and all that! Even now I fear my stoicism is crumbling and caution myself to strengthen my brave facade.
One ever present fact that burns like a beacon at the end of a long tunnel is my Family is there, waiting with open arms. Shouting words of encouragement. They're there, and need me as much as I need them. They are my inspiration. I can't falter.

Maybe I just need a vacation! After all it has been over a year since my wife and I traveled to Vietnam and had such wonderful adventures exploring Saigon, Hue and Hoi An. So we prepare for our next great adventure in Greece! I have been researching all things Greece and eagerly look forward to the day when we climb the hill to the ancient citadel, the Acropolis and explore the Parthenon together. As a student of history nothing is as intoxicating as the anticipation of seeing and experiencing the Greek Isles. I will walk where Thales walked. Seek answers from Plato and Socrates, study the Spartans, Athenians and my favorite the ever questioning Ionians.


Maybe I should listen to Thales, after all he defined a happy man as...

“Who is healthy in body, resourceful in soul and of a readily teachable nature”

Halfway House

To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture." ~ Pablo Picasso

my life has become a halfway house of projects and aspects of my life with which i need to reacquaint myself. it all stems from the desire to make 2008 all about BALANCE. take this past president's weekend—i did visit with my parents (check) and spent some awesome quality time with boy1&2 (check)—but the rest of my efforts? a work of art that is half baked and half-done in half-time. no, literally—take half-baked. in my efforts to rid my family of high fructose corn syrup, i'm taking up artisan bread in five minutes a day. i KNOW! BALANCE! but it IS about balance. i want to eat better. i want to reconnect with my family and feed them better. Zoe seems to make it work.



I mean really, how much easier can you get? im totally buying into it. i spend twenty minutes cooking a completely healthy dinner anyway. Why not have fresh bread? that's the half-baked part.

half-done: take your pick. no wait, i'll do it for you... working with boy2 heart's desire and mine are two different things, but they did come together beautifully this warm early evening. he played in the sandbox and i started prepping my raised garden bed. then together, we dug up the sprouting garlic, separated the sprouts and replanted them a fist apart. then we planted the shallots and red onions. its too early to tell if the blackberries survived the deer and winter and i found out its a little too early for my new canna bulbs, so the garden is half done. so is the zebra grass. about this time of year, i give my Miscanthus Sinesis "Strictus" a haircut so its ready for the upcoming spring. halfway done, the shears came unscrewed (!?!) and boy2 declared he was finished, so we went inside with the zeba grass thinking "what was THAT?" and why is half of me strewn about on the lawn. people! there are convenant laws here!

as i walked back into my halfway house, i was buoyed be a sense of wellness. could have been the three day holiday. could have been my husband, the irish-king would be coming home from work soon. could have been getting back in touch with all of the elements and aspects i love in my life. or it could just be the realization that i did very important, unfinished work today on the art of my life.

No Time Left for You

walsh, is a watch-wearer.

i am not.

walsh is intrigued.

"you don't wear a watch," he asks. i toss off an nah, but when i turn from the keyboard and look, he's got his i really don't get you look about him.

granted, i'm used to seeing that look—not only from walsh—there is andy, my husband, and my brother on occasion, even though he quickly covers it up so he doesn't hurt my feelings... but walsh over not wearing a watch? and now you are thinking to yourself—
is this really a post?

well yeh. it is.... slow post day. sit down and scroll.

"what you wear one?" i shoot back.

"well yeah" so its totally clear who the freak is.... "how do you know what time it is?"

"i always know about what time it is, besides, since you have a watch, i automatically know what time it is. and if you aren't there, there is always a clock, somewhere."

"ok, but what if you are in an area where there isn't a clock around," he persists.

"what, you find someone that has a watch and you ask them what time it is," i'm befuddled. this subject both fascinates and repels walsh. and now i'm intrigued by how unfathomable it seemed to walsh. total failure of imagination over the carelessness of time. it seemed like he had just discovered a major character flaw of mine.

"you ask them... and they just tell you?"

"yeh. it makes them feel good: 'excuse me, would you be able to tell me the time? what a beautiful timepiece—thank you so much!'"

"jackball..." and we laugh. "...you've never worn a watch?"

"no, i used to wear a watch. but then, when i worked my first start-up, i was really concerned about time....how much time it took to design an ad, a brochure, a whatever. i was obsessed with timing myself, being better and doing more with time. then i started to noticed whenever i looked at my watch, my tummy would hurt. then it got to the point where my wrist would ached right where the watch was. one day i took the watch off and i felt better. i decided not to wear one anymore."

"and you haven't since."

"yep."

and then there was silence as we returned to hacking away at our keyboards. how long the silence lasted, i couldn't tell you. i'm not the watch-wearer. i wonder if walsh could tell you....

Let not the sands of time get in your lunch. ~Author Unknown

Happy Birthday, Abe!

Hey Great Emancipator, happy happy birthday—although the big celebration is next year, when you hit your bicentennial birthday—so tonight we'll just birthday party like its 199.

early january, i finally picked up team of rivals—the truly thorough book of lincoln's rise to the presidency, his competitors' stories and how he chose his cabinet from his former competitors. i had been eyeballing it a while, but its a hefty book and even for a paper back, it was a bit hefty in price. i think i decided to purchase it on account of all the business lit books i've been reading for a book club. you know, who ate my cheese...fish..best ship in the navy...the secret—fred factor—it was like eating a lot of process food. yeh, it went down easy, it was in some instances (navy) interesting, it did fill my mind, but really—it wasnt very satisfying. too pat. too rote. too full of platitudes. too... too... too...

i blame it on standford's itunesu hannibal lecture series. the lecturer discussed how military leaders were taken with hannibal. how they studied him, trying to tease out secrets they could use in their real word situation. napolean even climbed the alps with a army of men, tracing hannibal's footsteps and causing havoc in swiss villages along the way.

history! i thought. so now i'm compiling a reading list of off-road business books. books that are about business, yet aren't on the stereotypical business lit map.

here is what i have so far:

1. Team of Rivals
2. Grant's Autobiography
3. Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions
4. Gates of Fire

what other books should i add to my list?

DANGER, Overload! Abort, Abort!

i've fried my circuits.
granted, the magnitude of brain power is a little suspect under this gorgeous head of flonde hair—but while i may lack in deep intellect, i try to make it up with an enterprising and optimistic attitude and willingness to learn.

right now, though, service engine soon lights are blinking crazily and smoke is pouring out of my ears.

curse you, ipod!

in the beginning of my ipod craze, my girl laughed at me as i dizzily described an incredibly satisfying cast i had listened to before our workout—stanford u's guest speaker discussing the history of the monterrey bay in CA. "don't you ever listen to music?" she asked. ha-HA foolish mortal girl! i now hold immortality in the palm of my hand! i shall broaden my intellect at a far more rapid pace than ever possible! itunes university shall reside in my head! rah-hah-hah-ha!

my voracious appetite for the casts was unlimited and i indiscriminately downloaded all manner of subjects: how to paint baseballs or lemons? YES! how did hannibal cross the alps with elephants and which pass did he most likely use? LETS FIND OUT! cooking shows, inc magazine podcasts, wine cast, wine cast, wine casts! a whole course in organizational behavior. literary critique of virgil's aeneid! flash game university, coffeebreak spanish, human-computer interaction seminar, dirty jobs casts, surfing casts, the writer's almanac, havard business review ideaCast, cool hunting videos, costa rica pod casts and gardening podcasts.....

then the consumption. every spare minute. folding laundry, the daily commute—what, the girl didnt make it to the workout? get the pod! my husband considered starting up his own podcast in hopes of communicating to me. it actually sounded like a good idea to me as well, but man, there is a ton of free content out there and i really don't have much time, so if i don't get to it right away, just keep on casting and i'll catch up. he shook his head in disgust.

then it started happening. slowly at first....in the middle of organizational management...i found myself drifting off. couldn't. keep. focused. drifting. drifting.....

whoa. i shook it off. downloaded divefilm hd video and national geographic for something pretty to look at and then went back to consuming. but it wasn't joyous like before. i edited my casts down, got rid of a few that were like: why am i listening to this? but it got worse.

i was coming home exhausted and filled with ennui. i would turn on bravotv and watch endless episodes of the housewives of orange county. even rewatched previous episodes of project runway. the creative process at work was moving at the speed of light, projects were being managed, but i didnt feel the spark. i started feeling just grey. shhhhk grey. like tv snow grey.

i think i have a problem, i told my husband.

you think? my husband retorted incredulously. then he put the buds back in my ears, took the pod and dialed up this episode of zefrank [explicit]:

Why Cant I Get Over Teahupoo?

in my heart of hearts, i think and feel i'm one of these gloriously bravado filled, prime of life surfstuds—stupidly drunk upon my sense of immortality—waiting watchfully for a sip of ocean energy. reality bitterly smacks me upside the head—wake up middle-age, overfed
girl! you've waited too long and put your energies into the wrong areas.

i've come to the realization the best i may do, in regards to surfing, would be to purchase a stint at a well-publicized chick surf camp—most likely in FLA—and maybe hit a 2' swell or two. call it a fantasy realized and scratch it off of my 43things.com. and that's if i can convince my ever patient husband that i must abandon the family in this pursuit to overcome deep seated water-oriented fears while answering my adrenalin lust. learning to surf, i worry, could be the a very satisfying drink of water that i'm pouring done the drain. even so, i still continue to pour. there are children to raise. there is money to raise to apply to the children to raise. there is a career, a vineyard, a husband. i live within this mountainous terrain. i live far, far from the coast of life.

yet, i hunt and feast upon images of teahupoo.


pronounced cho-pu, or, in english: broken skulls. teahupoo, located of the southeast end of french polynesia's tahiti. the chopes is a left-breaking reef but the outer reef also creates right breaks that those with boards must be cautious of when paddling out. the reef delivers consistent barrel waves best summed up in this really cool article:

ex–pro surfer and writer Matt Warshaw observes, “Waves as small as three feet can be ridden at Teahupoo, and at six feet it still has a reasonable shape and demeanor. Above eight feet, however, Teahupoo gets exponentially stronger, thicker, rounder, and more malevolent: each ride begins with a vertical entry; each wave transforms into a thick-walled cavern, which in turn collapses with enough force to send shock waves running through the still water of a nearby channel.”

Big Wave Surfing, Maura O'Connor

i think maura quotes one of the best descriptions as to why i'm taken with surfing:

...author Daniel Duane writes in Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast, “The climber never quite penetrates the mountain, the hiker remains trapped in the visual prison, but the surfer physically penetrates the heart of the ocean’s energy—and this is in no sense sentimentality—stands wet in its substance, pushed by its drive inside the kinetic vortex. Even riding a river, one rides a medium itself moved by gravity, likewise with a sailboard or on skis. Until someone figures out how to ride sound or light, surfing will remain the only way to ride energy.”

how long has it been since you've read a really dynamic paragraph like above?

let me ride energy, sound and light!